Re: passing arrays as parameters to functions

[Chris F.A. Johnson]

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, sharkura wrote:

> I am looking for a way to pass an array variable as an argument to a
> function.  The only remotely similar post I found dealt with spaces in
> arguments, which is not my problem.
>
> I want to pass three arguments to a function.  I want to receive them as
> three positional parameters, $1 (an array), $2 (a scalar integer), and $3
> (another scalar integer).  The integers are optional.
>
> Currently, if I pass my array argument as ${arrayArg[@]}, the contents
> actually expand to positional parameters $1, $2, ... $N.  I could just
> assume that the last two positional parameters are my two integer arguments,
> but I'd like them to be optional.  The size of the array is not fixed.

func()
{
  local f_array
  eval "f_array=( \"\${$1[@]}\" )"

  printf "%s\n" "${f_array[@]}"
}

a=( qw er ty ui op )
func a

--
   Chris F.A. Johnson, webmaster         <http://woodbine-gerrard.com>
   ===================================================================
   Author:
   Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)